Examines materials in the ERIC system related to trends in grammar instruction. Discusses the efficacy of formal grammar instruction in the schools and presents activities for successfully integrating grammar instruction into the writing curriculum. (HTH)

Sets forth five principles that should be emphasized in programs designed to help teachers teach nonstandard English speaking students more effectively. (FL)

Concludes that dialect speakers' miscues do not significantly influence their ability to comprehend print material when they are asked to read material at their instructional level. (FL)

Teachers play an important role in disadvantaged Black children's development of language and language usage. For the best results in reading instruction, teachers must (1) create a warm environment, (2) understand the potential for different interpretations of written materials by disadvantaged Black students, and (3) use the children's language…

In combatting phonological interference in second language learning, attention should be paid to interference-producing aspects of the actual dialect that is the student's native language, rather than to the "standard" form of the language. (JB)

It is not necessary for Black children to lose their ethnic, linguistic, and cultural behavior patterns when learning standard English, if they are taught by enlightened teachers using innovative educational programs. (Author/MC)

Proposes a method for teaching listening comprehension skills to students of French in Canada by incorporating Quebec phonetics in a standard French phonological component. (AM)

Recounts a study which provides evidence that teachers' perceptions of students' achievement potential are most seriously affected by social class information and less so by dialect-ethnicity than assumed in previous language-attitude research. (MH)

Examines phonological transfer in developmental student writing (spelling or word configurations that represent what the writer hears). Examines two discourse features--"by strings" and "topic/comment" sentence structures. Analyzes a developmental writing African American student's essay, demonstrating the power and tension in…

A common approach to language awareness is through the contrast between folk and scientific knowledge, with the former getting less attention. This article highlights the modes of folk linguistic awareness, discusses it as a dynamic area of study, and advocates its value for both scientific merit and its importance to applied concerns. (39…

Explores several aspects of Spanish mood use within the single dialect area of the Texas-Mexico border that exhibits two slightly different varieties of Spanish. Findings reveal an overwhelming variability in mood use in every example studied on both sides of the border. Age does not play any role in mood selection for either group. Other findings…

Discusses an interview in which Marcyliena Morgan elaborates on the necessity to analyze both microlinguistic issues of grammar and phonology as well as larger issues of discourse pragmatics and language ideology. The interview touches on African American poetry, the convergence of African American and standard English, and oases and indirectness.…

Examines a pattern of end-of-word deletion in Faetar, a Francoprovencal dialect spoken in southern Italy, and considers synchronic variants. The article uses the word "deletion" as a synchronic description of the fact that speakers do not always phonetically produce everything in the input form. Optimality Theory accounts for such…

Examines sociolinguistic and historical context in which a dramatic increase in literacy (from 5 percent literacy in 1945 to 75 percent literacy in 1980) occurred in Indonesia, focusing on use of Bahasa Indonesian, the national language, and current efforts to extend literacy through nonformal education programs and to expand reading and writing…

In the Ivory Coast, the official standard French has not been established as the language of the masses and is threatened by Dyula and a Popular French, two lingua francas that have potential as national languages even though the populations do not seem supportive of new language policy. (Author/MSE)